Regret at heart of latest call for organ donors

New campaign aims to shame Scots into registering as organ donors. Picture: Getty

KATE FOSTER

THOUSANDS of Scots will be asked if they would “regret” failing to donate their organs after they had died in an experiment aimed at boosting the number of life-saving transplants.

They will be targeted in a trial to see whether more will register as donors if made to feel guilty about not doing so.

The £162,000 experiment is being funded by the Scottish Government and organised by medical experts who say it could form the basis of future donation campaigns.

The move has divided expert opinion, with some warning it is wrong to persuade people by promoting a sense of shame.

With more than 600 Scots waiting for life-saving organ transplants, the government has already launched several campaigns to register more donors. But the new trial moves away from the theme of “giving the gift of life” towards asking people to think over the impact of not donating.

Ronan O’Carroll, lead researcher and professor of psychology at Stirling University, said previous research on issues such as safe sex and weight loss revealed people can be persuaded to act if they were asked if they would later regret not doing so. He said: “There is an insufficient supply of donor organs to meet demand for transplants.

“There is, therefore, an urgent need to identify factors that overcome the barriers that deter people from registering as an organ donor.”

He added: “Regret is an emotion experienced when people believe their situation could have been better if they had acted differently. Studies suggest people are more likely to act when they anticipate regret for inaction. Simply asking whether they would later regret inaction can significantly increase the likelihood of an action occurring.”

Around 14,500 Scots will be contacted in the next few months with details of how to join the organ donor register.

While some will simply receive a letter with details of how to join, others will be asked if they would later “feel regret” if they did not join or might later “wish they had”.

The questions are designed to make people think more deeply about organ donation.

Researchers will examine whether this strategy encourages more to come forward than would have done otherwise. If it is a success, official NHS organ donation campaigns could use “regret” as a theme. Although this represents a hardening of approach, it does not require time-consuming legislative changes.

A number of charities support the move. Dr Calum MacKellar, director of research for the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, said: “The idea of guilt is a very Scottish one and I have no ethical worries about this. It’s just a question of whether people will give grudgingly. I do not think guilt is necessarily wrong, in fact sometimes it’s morally acceptable. It will be interesting to see how Scots react.”

However, some campaigners are not convinced. Margaret Watt, chairwoman of the Scotland Patients’ Association said: “Not everyone wants to or is able to become a donor and this might upset people and make them feel guilty. Organ donation is a gift and it would be better to educate people on giving the gift of life instead.”

Many charities back a move to a system of “presumed consent”, in which all adults are potential donors unless they opt out. Ben McKendrick, of the British Heart Foundation Scotland, said: “While we are interested in any initiative that might encourage donors, one thing that would increase donation is an opt-out system.”

An NHS Blood and Transplant spokesman said: “Whilst 60 per cent of us say we support organ donation, only 30 per cent are on the register.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.